What We Know: 40 Games In

Remember how much fun it was to watch a winning team? Well, the past week and change has been a fun trip back to those days, even if key components are still missing. The Phillies are 21-19, winners of six straight and seven of their last eight. They’re still in last in the division and four games back of the top spot, so things aren’t all rosy, but this has been the best week of a thus-far-mediocre season. All I really want to do is glow about what a monstrously good start to the season Carlos Ruiz has had.

How about this Ruiz fellow, eh? A .371/.415/.621 slash on the season to date puts him among the top hitters in baseball. Right now, he’s even outslugging Ryan Braun and David Ortiz. Is he going to stay on this level all year? Almost certainly not. His .360 BABIP figures to take a couple steps down, but even when it does, he’ll be posting a line that’s more than respectable for as good a defensive catcher as he is, to boot.Ruiz is doing big time damage on pitches over the heart of the plate – as you’d want every hitter to do – but is also feasting on pitches in the upper half of the zone. A popular talking point on Chooch in those handy-dandy “scouting report” broadcast graphics is that he loves to hit the fastball. It’s easy to say that about the majority of Major Leaguers, but it really has been particularly true of Ruiz to date. Carlos has been thrown 244 fastballs in 2012, of which he has only swung on and missed four times. He’s batting .446 with a 1.222 OPS when he puts a fastball in play.

I really don’t have much else to say in this update, so I’ll just let this one belong to Chooch. He’s certainly earned it.